Posts Tagged: marketing strategy

Running a business can be a very profitable venture if you’re using the correct tools to bring in the revenue. Imagine being able to get in touch with each of your employees with the push of a button, and get in contact with consumer that live nowhere near your business, all with one mobile application.

The problem is, it can be hard to monitor exactly how well your business is doing while on the go, and increasingly hard to run a business when you’re out of town. There’s no need to worry any longer about just how your business is doing while you’re away, by using the applications provides by MCommerce. This article will tell a little more about this revolutionary application that can expand your business at an incredible rate.

MCommerce has a set of very unique and progressive digital devices and applications that allow the user to keep in touch with all staff members involved with their business, and using the applications provides users a way to track all incoming and outgoing expenses that their business or company goes through on a day to day basis. This means that even while on the go, you don’t have to worry about the welfare of your business, and can easily and quickly get in touch with any of the staff members or employees that you need to reach.

Mobile Benefits

The MCommerce mobile business applications that are available have revolutionized the way business is carried out. The ability to communicate with your employees through the application allows you to expand your business through other ventures, even while you’re away from the business itself. In addition to communication with the employees, your business can get in direct contact with the consumers of your product.

The Mobile Commerce applications allow you to increase your customer base substantially, without the customer ever being forced to step through your doors. The buying and selling system offered by MCommerce allows you to sell to customers and set up shipping orders without ever having to see them in person. This helps with long distance business exchanges, and can expand your market substantially.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to have a well-running and ever-expanding business, the MCommerce applications are a must have. Don’t waste your time and money looking for other ways to sell your product online; instead, use the plenty of different services provided by MCommerce, and watch your business and customer base expand substantially.

As we see marketing continuing to change in terms of the requirements of the end user clients, it is clear that the use of Mobile as a marketing channel is one aspect of business that cannot be ignored any longer. In our consultancy we are currently targeting the legal sector, identified various companies to work with as we see that this is a market sector that people are accessing via their mobile devices on a daily rising basis.

The point to make is that as you can imagine, the reasons why people will call law firms vary widely and more and more people are calling law firms from their Smart Phones & Mobile Devices. Now, if you ask the question regarding what the core competency of Legal Companies are it is of course in the legal expertise which they charge for. It is not about keeping up to date with the latest movements and updates when it comes to marketing on the internet which includes the strategic use of Mobile Websites and Apps.

With the vast majority of the legal firms websites that we survey not having a mobile optimized website the first step is to make contact and to get a mobile optimized website designed and developed. Generally speaking we advise clients to use their Mobile Website for bringing in new customers and clients into their marketing funnel, when we go on to develop and App this is typically used to connect with and keep in touch with those who have developed an ongoing relationship with the law firms.

The specific functionality of the mobile website and app for the legal profession will of course vary based on the actual service offering of the law firm. This is where our Marketing Consulting expertise comes into play as we consult with our clients before we design and develop any Mobile Website or App. This is to stress the point that we are Marketing Strategy Consultant and the use of the mobile website and app are an extension of the marketing strategy of the company we are dealing with.

In summary, this is about Marketing Strategy Development and challenging those who have been given marketing development opportunities within the law firm [typically they will not be marketing professionals] to embrace this particular marketing channel upon which they can use to expand and promote their business.

To learn more about mobile marketing in the legal sector click on the link and contact us so we can begin working together, get the free report or read more of the excellent mobile marketing content that is provided there.

It is safe to say that the majority of the existing strategies that have been developed for small businesses (SMEs) as well as some of the larger corporations were originally developed before rise and rise of the internet in our personal and professional lives.

Now we have to deal with Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Mobile Optimized Websites as well as the widespread use of Mobile Apps. The point being that to be successful, long standing business strategies need to be modified accordingly or said another way, the online strategies that are developed need to be done so by incorporating more traditional [offline] strategies into every activity that takes place on the internet.

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We like to stress the point that it is not about ranking a video on YouTube, or even ranking a website in Google, or about how many tweets that are put out. This is how we differentiate our services to clients when it comes to working with them to develop their go to market online strategies. It all starts by understanding their core business strategies, i.e. their :-

Channel Marketing Strategies

Branding Activities

Distribution Channels

Market Segmentation

Category Marketing Choices

Lifetime Client Value

Unique Value Proposition

… and the list can go on and on, the point is that using the internet does not mean that these core business fundamentals change. This is why we caution businesses that even if they do not work with us, they need to vet carefully who they work with.

The person or company who is the best technically may not be the best at making sure that your business’ marketing strategy is appropriately conveyed via online internet activities in relation to your business.

So in conclusion : your business’ strategy may well need to be modified accordingly to ensure that the internet is incorporated, you as the business owner do not need to know everything about how this is done but you need to make sure that whoever you use understands marketing fundamentals as well as the ins and outs of how to incorporate the internet in the go to market strategies of any corporation.

This is our specialty which we look to continue to develop, any question, comments or thoughts, feel free to get in touch.

There can be no doubt that the world has changed in terms of how we communicate with each other, how we use mobile phones on a daily basis and how the visibility of a business on the Internet can translate into literally millions of dollars of revenue.

As the Internet is to be positioned as a key component of any company’s marketing strategy Apps for Businesses have become something that is almost a must have so that clients can have your business’ information at their fingertips. This is of course one reason why we (as a part of our consulting and Mobile Website development) have decided to develop Apps for Businesses.

Apps for local businesses are needed because customers almost have an expectation that your company will have Internet visibility, also with the ever increasing use of Mobile Marketing and of the App Store as promoted by Apple along with the Android Apps store, the marketplace have been accustomed to using Apps for all kinds of purposes. With that in mind, this plays straight into the strategy of the business owner i.e. give the marketplace what they are accustomed to, give them an App so that they can download be able to have constant access to your company’s news and information from their mobile device.

As a business strategy consulting working with businesses from multiple market sectors on an international basis there are certain trends that are so dominant that for ongoing consulting and training sessions I cannot help but point them out.

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One of these trends is the astounding use of mobile devices (smart phones, iPads, tablet computers & other mobile devices) by the population at large. Of course it could be pointed out that this is mainly for personal & social purposes; however – the business person must also consider those business purchasers looking for information (as we consider business to business marketing) and; those end user clients who are out searching for news and information using their mobile devices. Given the small screen size, it is becoming critical not to present searchers with a full blow website but with the reduced options given by your business mobile website.

One of the things to point out is that for those searching for news and information using their mobile devices is that they probably are not looking to read essays on your company, latest press releases and full length biographies concerning your business’ executive staff.

More to the point is that they wish to contact your company and find out where you are located. Granted, in some cases it may be that internet searchers are looking for detailed information but for the purpose of the mobile website – I am of the opinion that ‘less is more’. That is to say – when it comes to the options given on a mobile website, present the user with contact details and location information as a basis and; give them the option to access the full blow business wesbite as well.

As a business strategy consultant I am pointing out the fact that the options presented in your mobile marketing business website should be a subset of your ongoing business strategy (not an afterthought or something passed on to someone in the company who has some technical information & knowhow !).

What we call a ‘tap to call’ mobile marketing wesbite will be sufficient for the majority of businesses; this would in most cases have location map details included allowing the searcher to easily contact your company (and will have the option to access your full website).

Managers and business leaders – please do not relegate the decision making regarding the mobile business website that your company must have down to the technical staff. Bring the decision and strategy direction up to the business level discussions where revenue generation is being considered and how the company can bring more customers into the marketing funnel.

Mobile marketing business strategy is included as a full session in my consulting and training work – if you’d like to engage with a consultant with an international perspective and experience in working with multiple blue chip organisations, feel free to get in touch in order to discuss your business and internet [including mobile] marketing strategy today.

Common mistakes business owners make when using QR Codes and how to avoid them

QR Codes are two-dimensional codes that connect mobile users to your online presence and can be a powerful marketing strategy. However since it is a new trend, there often costly mistakes that business owners make that can be avoided. This article looks at the common mistakes and how to avoid them when using QR Codes to market your small business. Here are three that I have picked out for the purpose of this article.

1. Not having a clearly defined campaign strategy.
Often business owners will jump ahead of themselves, print a few QR Codes, stick them somewhere and hope something happens. Yet for QR Codes to be effective, they must be the end result of a well thought overall strategy that is based on plenty of market research.

It is important to have specific goals your business wants to achieve such as to get moreFacebooklikes, to subscribe more people to your newsletter, to increase sales in the month of November 2011 etc.

In addition, it is vital to conduct thorough market research on yourtargetmarket and to know how well they understand what QR Codes are, how to scan them etc. If you’retargetmarket is technophobic, you will need to incorporate a lot of educational instructions or decide that QR Codes may not be a good idea.

2. Not testing your QR Codes
A surprising mistake business owners make is not testing their codes. Although QR Codes are free to generate, your media ads are paid for so if a code is faulty, you will have wasted a lot of money on your ads.
You should test your code in the following ways:
* Make sure they work on various mobile devices
* Make sure they work with various code reading apps
* Make sure the color contrast between the code and its background is friendly so that it’s possible to scan the code. Plus make sure the code is sized correctly.
* If you are using codes in outdoor locations, go to each of those sites and check that there is Wi-Fi in the location. After all with no internet connection, QR Codes will not connect to your website.

I had an interesting conversation today with a colleague [Mark Stonham] and we were discussing strategy development and the conversation, for a while became centred around the internet. It was then that I started to talk about my concept of how I feel the internet should be viewed and positioned as a key component of a company’s marketing strategy.

Those of you have read my thoughts before will know that I position the internet as a [nother] marketing channel that organisations can use to get their message out to the world at large, this channel can be used to collect market intelligence, survey customers as well as being used to deliver the products and services of the company to the client.

I also went on to stress the point

that I believe that not enough

attention is paid to segmenting the

internet itself as a channel to market.

What do I mean by this ? well – the internet itself provides multiple sub channels that can be used to communicate with – some of them are :-

blogging

article marketing

video marketing

email marketing

social media marketing

… it is through these marketing channel that we as marketers and business leaders need to make sure that we communicate effectively with those who are to become our customers. For that to happen those clients must be interfacing with us through specific sub internet channels.

It is here that I can see where many companies are potentially making costly strategy development errors in not taking the time up front to develop their internet channel marketing strategy. It is here that they will be told which internet sub channels their clients are interfacing with most and direct them with respect to how much effort, time and energy should be directed towards any one or multple internet marketing sub channel.

Having said that, I do understand that there are many social media marketing experts that push the idea that using this form of marketing on the internet is all that is necessary – needless to say, I disagree as …

Strategy should precedes execution

… and this stands true for marketing on the internet as it does if you were to be selling products and services into a new country.

As always, I hope you find this useful – and do feel free to hit the contact button above and get in touch if you would like to discuss business consulting, training, coaching, speaking or mentoring services.

This is a critical question that is being answered on a daily basis by the most successful corporations around the world. This extremely important topic is one that is relevant for every business …

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… no matter what industry or size of organisation. In other words the question to be answered is :-

what is you Promotional Channel Marketing Strategy ?

… of course, we know that Channel Marketing can readily be split into two main categories, that of delivering your product and/or service to the market place and; the specific channel used to promote your company’s products / services.

In some cases you can use the same channel for both consumption and delivery but in many cases there will need to be a careful blend of pushing the message of the organisation through specific channels and, using various channels more that others and therefore driving customers to take specific actions in order to get them into the marketing funnel.

One of the best things you can do today is to stop and take a blank piece of paper and consider the blend of channels that you are actively using the promote your products and services to the world at large.

The blend is critically important as the blend that you use will be based on the results of your market segmentation activities in line with who you are selling to and where they congregate in terms of what the best medium is to use to deliver your message to them.

This is but one small part of a component of developing a business strategy.

Thoughts, comments ? want to work together [nationally or internationally] ? feel free to get in touch.

As I was discussing during my radio program a few weeks ago, China is now officially the world’s second largest economy …

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… overtaking Japan and as far as we can see the business opportunities will continue to rise in the coming years. After my very first business consulting seminar in Shangai [in Channel Marketing Strategies] focussing on the Internet and Distribution,

it was very educational for me to learn from some of the executives who I was standing in front of for days delivering the first of many marketing strategy seminars and consulting sessions.

Having managament from different industries all desiring to have their needs met meets with certain challenges, however as I am striving for excellence – I was happy to stretch myself up into new comfort zones.

With there being a shift from China just acting as a manufacturing arm for many of the world’s Multi National Companies to being an economy that is innovating and producing goods and services that needed domestically and internationally, we see a corresponding need to learn from the west in terms of process management and strategy development. The point is that – by learning in the form of taking in business consultants from the West, the country will save itself years in terms of trial and error, not to mention the amount of money that goes with that.

With all of the dynamics that goes into piecing the economies of the world together, as a business consultant I can see many opportunities for strategyt consultants like myself to lending a hand to the development of the economy of China.

With that said, I look forward to many more interactions and learning from as well as assisting Chinese [based] companies to grow and prosper as the dependency on the strength of business China continues to be one that is growing.

Your company’s [Distribution] Channel Marketing Strategy is key to the success of the products that you are selling in the market place, is used to be that technological superiority could be relied upon for market dominance. Looking at companies such as Walmart and Dell, we can see how critical it is for organisation’s to be continually refining the particular [Distribution] Channel Marketing Strategy used for getting their products from Manufacturer to eventual [Business or Industrial] end user.

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The enclosed video gives an overview of the two day Channel Marketing seminar that I run for corporations. Take a look and get an overview of the whole topic and see if you can pull anything from the video to maybe modify some of the actions currently being pursued in your business.